PEANUTS 



1581 



if picking is deferred until late autumn. 

 If the pods are not well protected in stack- 

 ing, many will be destroyed by the com- 

 mon blackbird. In some sections it is 

 necessary to pick as early as possible 

 to prevent heavy loss from the ravages 

 of field mice and rats while the peanuts 

 are in the shock. 



If peanuts are not well stacked the 

 pods are liable to become discolored by 

 the heavy fogs and driving rains of late 

 autumn. The stacks should not be opened 

 or the vines handled during wet weather. 



Picking by Hand 



The standard of excellence in the pea- 

 nut markets is always based upon hand- 

 picked stock. Peanuts that are picked 

 by hand now bring a higher price than 

 those picked by machinery, but with the 

 present scarcity of labor and rapid im- 

 provement in peanut-picking machinery 

 the time will soon come when a uniform 

 price will be paid for a given quality of 

 peas regardless of how the picking is 

 done. 



In some localities the pickers are paid 

 by the hundred pounds, 40 cents a 100 

 being the average price paid. At this 

 rate the cost of picking the peanuts grown 

 on one acre will vary from $4 to $8. 



Use of Machines for Picking 



Two types of machines have been em- 

 ployed for picking peanuts from the vines, 

 and most of the work done by them has 

 been quite satisfactory. A cylinder ma- 

 chine similar to a regular grain separator 

 except as to size has been used for several 



years, especially in the districts where 

 the Spanish variety is extensively grown. 

 The principal objection to all the cylinder 

 machines is the tendency to break the 

 pods and both shell and injure the peas. 

 By running the cylinder quite slowly, 

 say at 400 revolutions a minute, and feed- 

 ing properly, it is possible to thrash pea- 

 nuts by using a cylinder machine with a 

 very small percentage of loss from break- 

 age. Pods that are merely cracked or 

 that have what the growers term "oy- 

 ster mouths" will not keep for a long 

 period but become rancid or are injured 

 by small insects while in storage. 



There is a machine in use which works 

 upon an entirely different principle from 

 the cylinder machines and which does not 

 break or injure the pods. In this ma- 

 chine the picking is done by dragging 

 the vines over a horizontal wire mesh, 

 and at the same time brushes act on the 

 lower side of the wire screen to remove 

 the nuts. Very little power is required to 

 operate this machine, two complete outfits 

 being run at once by a five-horsepower 

 gasoline engine. The capacity of this ma- 

 chine is from 300 to 500 bushels a day. 

 In addition to removing the pods from 

 the vines the machine has the usual 

 cleaning arrangements and a device for 

 removing the small stems from the pods, 

 delivering them in a condition suitable 

 for the cleaning factory. Fig. 6 shows 

 one of these machines in operation. 



Care of Peanuts After Picking 



At no time after the curing process 

 should the peanut pods be exposed to 



Fig. 6. Peanut Picking Machine in Operation. Improved Type. 



